I worked at a pharma sales company for a bit that was losing money. This was shortly after a startup I cofounded back in the 90's was sold, and was my first (and only) "senior exec" position after that transaction (afterward I went back to engineering). I remember attending a nearly four hour meeting where the senior executive team and CEO spent the entire time strategizing ways to increase the executive bonuses. I noted that perhaps we should address that after we solved the "losing money" problem, and you would have thought I had suggested kidnapping the CEO's mother. The lesson I took from that is that senior management can be _amazingly_ out of touch, and one hundred percent convinced of their own merit and entitlement, regardless of what's going on with the business.
